Olives flourished long before there were martinis

By Jim Willard

Posted:
02/05/2013 12:40:38 PM MST

If you've ever seen "M*A*S*H," the dark comedy that inspired the wonderful television series, you may recall this classic scene. Trapper John has just arrived at the M.A.S.H. unit and is invited into the officers' tent. Hawkeye offers him a martini. He accepts and when it's proffered to him sans olive, he reaches into his parka and withdraws a jar of olives. His comment is something to the effect that what is a martini without an olive?

The question is a valid one according to some of my friends, but the martini is a Johnny-come-lately as far as olive usage.

Ancient Egyptian paintings (they were into mead not gin) depict olives, however they were probably wild fruit -- yes, their relatives are the fig, date and apple.

The Egyptians used their oil as a lubricant and a fuel for lamps. Olive oil may have been the lubricant used to help move obelisks and pyramid blocks.

The cultivation of olives as a cash crop probably started about 3500 B.C. in Syria and on the island of Crete. The olive became Plato's favorite food as well as being a building block for early Mediterranean commerce. Olives flourished in the dry, rocky soil of Greece when other plants died.

Olive growing gradually spread to other European countries. Spain picked up on it in the 4th century B.C. The Romans loved 'em, using them at the onset of meals as appetizers and at the conclusion as mouth fresheners. Even slaves received olives (along with wine and salt) as part of their daily rations although they got the Grade B olives, light on oil.

Olives came to the U.S. by way of Mexico when Franciscan friars transplanted trees into the California missions in the late 18th century.

Californians virtually ignored the olives for a century then tumbled to the fact that they could provide a nice income crop.

The year was 1899 when the martini appeared on the American scene and the olive found another use.

So now we're back to "M*A*S*H" and the surgeons of the 4077th. You don't really believe they ate that many soaked olives, do you?

What's the common denominator for these early 20th century slogans: "The Great National Temperance," "Three Million a Day" and "Thirst Knows No Season"? If your call was early Coca-Cola sales campaigns, you're right on.

He was most likely correct; it didn't hurt him at all. Dr. Painless Parker legally changed his first name to that in order to get around 1880s' legislation designed to curb advertising. It worked so well that he created the first national chain of dental clinics.

Frankly, I don't know what I'd do with mine. If you were to divide up all the planet's total land area among all the people, each person would receive about 8 1/2 acres.

I'll have to call this to the attention of the CEO. Physicians in early Greece and Rome once believed that the only way to produce a good crop of basil was to curse when planting the seeds.

In a bit of film trivia, actor Christopher Lee was the only member of the cast or crew of "The Lord of the Rings" films to have ever met the books' author J.R.R. Tolkien.

The late author Barbara Tuchman noted, "War is the unfolding of miscalculations."

Jim Willard, a Loveland resident since 1967, retired from Hewlett-Packard after 33 years to focus on less trivial things. He calls Twoey, his bichon frisé-Maltese dog, vice president of research for his column.